


The Hitchhiker

by leadernovaandthemacabre



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Lance (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 19:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18452861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leadernovaandthemacabre/pseuds/leadernovaandthemacabre
Summary: Shiro unwittingly picks up a hitchhiker too pretty for the solemn life he leads.





	The Hitchhiker

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be two chapters long. But after review I've decided to leave it as is. I apologize to readers who might have subscribed: my writing spirit feels like its own entity more often than not. Thank you.

When Lance skimmed the latest coral reef, remora and other friendly parasite pickers in his wake, he drifted over a path of warfare. A scene of broken sea fans and bruised beds and sheer lack of life across the polychromatic patchwork of this tropical forest convinced him to sink as low as he could go. Belly flattened against the sand, he was never so appreciative of his unflattering colour until that moment.

Then the sun turned black in the wake of the largest mer he’d ever seen.

Anemones and their guts, where they hadn’t fled already, went _fwoosh_ back into their shells. Lance’s teeth chattered and he pressed painfully close into the seabed. Sand irritated the gills lining his ribs and throat. It was a small sacrifice to escape the behemoth’s attention.

But for all that it was large and surly and prowling, it was injured. It smelled like fatigue and blood and sure enough a pink cloud was pouring from its right eye. It turned and Lance dove down harder—it wasn’t an unpleasant creature, although Lance never had a thought for mers of the shark inclination, despite its injury it was a strong thing, its muscular tail and taut upper body ribbed with the light pink of survived battles.

Lance started forward: that was likely the kind of travel partner he needed.

He changed his mind when a new shadow barreled into the arena and the mershark sent out a pulse of rage and surprise. His smaller, nimbler aggressor was silent and worked fast! It tore into the mershark’s sides and gills and tried, repeatedly, to flip him upside down, to drown him. Wherever the mershark desperately righted itself, the shadow clawed and raked at its face or arm.

Lance’s ears pounded with fear and overexposure to their siren wails. A strawberry froth fumed in the clearing. And from this cloud of shrieks and anarchy fell an inoffensive object.

An arm.

Three warning pulses fired off at that same moment. It was not of the grainy, melodic texture the mershark sang with. It was low, like the growl of a whale, and even, unurgent, but clear: _go away go away go away go away go away._ It was almost polite, even.

The bubbles cleared and the mershark loped to the edge of the world, teeth bared—arm _eaten off—_ unable to swim quickly or straight.

The champion who remained watched him go with slit pupils and flared gills, their bright purple flesh making him mutually terrifying and exotic. When he relaxed he was a small, twice the size of Lance maybe but significantly smaller than the mershark, and his meaty tail was nothing but black muscle, and his dorsal fin a little beat up.

He turned into a patch of light and Lance realized he was _orca_. He turned into a patch of light and Lance realized he was gorgeous.

He turned into a patch of light and Lance realized he was hurt.

While no plumes of red chased him as did his rival, ribbons still carted off telltale wounds in his body. He licked his left arm plaintively, he looked awkward trying to settle and heal.

Lance started forward: _he will do._

Lance darted from outcropping to outcropping. He may have been plain, but he was gifted with stealth. His scales didn’t cut through the water and diminish sound like a shark’s hide would have, but they were shaped close enough to do the job. Avoiding the latticework of coral reef was the hardest part, being as life had yet to recover from the giants’ battle, as much as a whisper of his fin against sand would have sounded loud.

When Lance was a body’s length away, the merorca was zig-zagging lazily in a slow current. Lance dove forward, spinning into the tide, and smacked his mouth against a gouge on the merorca’s left forearm.

He flailed, predictably. He swung out with his powerful tail and Lance dodged—he was by no means faster but he was close enough and his coalescent tired enough that flanking his back and licking the wounds there was easy.

The merorca thrashed again, groggily hissing.

Lance dove for his tail—

“ _Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop.”_

Lance stopped and looked up. _He speaks._

The merorca angled his tail upwards and Lance, whose chest was against it, found himself drifting close against his will. He made an effort to scramble back. The merorca’s only hand shot out and caught one of his three necklaces. He shrieked.

“Don’t shout,” the merorca clicked. “If anyone should be shouting it’s me. Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m Lance,” he gasped, the cord biting into his nape, rubbing his middle gill. “I was healing you.”

“Healing me?” and he looked down. Yes, where he was been bleeding there was no blood. Where he had been aching only an itchy tingle remained. But the merorca did not release him. “You’re magic?”

“It’s not magic. It’s…” but how did Lance explain to a merorca who, though was cultured enough to have coherent speech, was out of depth enough to not recognize the Specialized?

The Specialized were engineered within their pods to be good at healing others, making tools, carrying on knowledge. They did everything apart from fighting and hunting and fucking. They were raisers of young and defenders of the future. They were apothecaries and historians. They were designed from birth to serve.

“I was born that way,” Lance supplied simply. He cleared his throat tellingly, but the merorca did not release him. His eyes narrowed, but they did not reduce to slits. He did not feel threatened, which Lance took as a win as he ventured, “What’s your name?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He swam away.

Lance was catapulted back by a powerful stroke of his tail. “Wait!” he blubbered. “ _Please!”_

“Go away, Lance,” the merorca sang.

“ _Please!”_ Lance insisted, driving himself to exhaustion in his mad sprint that this powerful stranger met and surpassed with the ease of breath. “Please I don’t want to be lonely!”

At the end of his crying, though, the merorca was too far away to see.

-

Wailing would summon all sorts of monsters. Skimming the surface at moonrise was an invitation to be eaten. Flirting at the fringe of another mer’s territory was begging to be raped. But Lance did them all.

He wept and wept and wept and wept through the entire night, pausing to break the surface and stare at nothing or circling invisible objects while he kept singing his own name.

He would sing his own name when he was lost from his pod, and his mother or grandmother or sisters or brothers would reply by singing their names. And that was how he’d find his way back.

Naturally, it didn’t work when you were too far apart.

He started wailing anew, heartbreak every note and stanza.

“ _Shut up!”_

He halted at the familiar pulse. The merorca arrived from the warm deep, his eyes slits and his energy overbearing. Lance made himself small immediately and dove to the sand.

The merorca loomed over him, “Are you _trying_ to get eaten? This is Galra territory, Lance!”

“You remembered my name.”

“Who wouldn’t? You’ve been screaming it since moonrise!”

“Are you going to leave again?”

The merorca whistled in exasperation. “Whatever you want from me I cannot provide it. You are better off going back where you came from. _Do not go east_. The congregations there are not kind to outsiders.” He moved away.

“Wait, _wait please!”_

“Stop screaming.”

“Please take me.”

“Take you?” he frowned, examining him anew. “Aren’t you a boy?”

“That’s not—if I were a girl would you?”

Flat: “No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re _loud._ And you’re _still_ wailing.”

Lance shut up. He tread above the sand, tail curling beneath him in a prehensile coil, and he noticed the action took the merorca’s avid attention. “What are you?”

“Specialized.”

He jerked. “Specialized!”

“It means—”

“I know what it means.” He watched Lance differently. His eyes darted away, gleaming with suspicious vigilance. “Where’s your pod?”

“Separated in a storm.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I’ve lost count of the moons.”

It was a long time. The merorca, then, was vaguely sympathetic. “I won’t replace your pod.”

“You won’t have to,” Lance lit up. “Just let me stay near to you. I’ll heal you anytime you’re injured, I’ll clean you of parasites, comb your hair—I can make nets, I know what vegetation is good and safe to eat.”

“And when it’s mating season?”

“I’ll hide. I’ll stay out of your way. I could help you find a woman and hide. Just please _please_ let me stay with you. I’ll die if I’m alone.”

“You seem to have done a good job for yourself so far.”

Lance’s eyes got round and his mouth red.

The merorca hissed: “Do not cry.”

Lance swallowed it.

The nameless merorca was not ignorant of the gifts of the Specialized. While he never heard of one alone, he could only imagine how difficult it was for Lance. They were bred to cater to the family, bred to be dependent on them. Isolation must have been painful.

That aside, knowledge would be indispensable. He could remember little of what the Specialist of his own pod had taught him before the massacre of his people, but what little that was had saved him on occasion. He recognized the value in those skills. Having Lance teach him, even if at the cost of his company, was a fine prize.

“I’m grateful that you helped me, Lance. I’ll let you stay with me for a while.”

Lance surged forward and placed each hand on each shoulder: “Please tell me your name!”

“It’s Shiro, now stop _yelling_ before you bring the stars down.”

Shiro. Lance smiled. Shiro.

Shiro then drifted half-awake through the sleeping coral gardens, faintly rousing whenever Lance bobbed in or out of his peripheral vision. Lance had licked his remaining injuries to speedy recovery, and between that and his defeat of Sendak he was catatonically tired. He was terrified, therefore, when he awoke out of a deep sleep with a start.

He hadn’t slept so deeply since he was born. Or safe.

Lance was swimming above him, shielding his face from the sun. He looked alert if bored, and the most attractive since Shiro had met him. He was wearing gold, Shiro noticed at last. On each forearm and each wrist. And on his hips that rolled like a summer dream were twin belts of intricately woven rope from which hung pouches. His tail was lithe, almost sickly to his eyes, but they were decorated in well-maintained scales that borrowed their vitality from sunshine.

When Shiro turned from drifting on his back to his belly Lance came to, lighting up, watching him like a hungry squid, reporting on the past few hours.

“How long was I asleep?”

“From middle moon to quarter sun.”

“And nothing happened?”

Lance hesitated. “A pod of dolphins joined us for a little bit.”

“Oh.” Dolphins were a good sign. They may have been craftier than sharks but they were at least uninterested in killing for sport. Unless you were a pufferfish.

“How do you feel?”

“Hungry.”

Lance pointed. Ahead was a feeding frenzy from above and below—no mers in sight—but dolphins corralling shoals and birds plunging deep from above. Shiro zoomed in just as a bird did. He returned to Lance, handed it off, and disappeared into the anarchy.

Lance circled the hunting grounds distantly, watching as whales materialized from nowhere and a cloud of krill shot through him. He tumbled out of the wake of a giant eye and soon he was flanked by a whole pod. It was amazing to feel so small.

Shiro lurking beside him provided a similar feeling.

“Here.”

“ _Woah,_ you caught a big one!”

“And three birds.”

“Wow, you’re a really good hunter!”

Shiro watched him for a moment. Perhaps the thinness was not a physiological. “Let’s go.”

“Okay!”

-

Lance ate much and anything. Shiro brought him a squid? Gone in a moment. Crab? Hardy, but he was an inch away from eating the shells too. Three day old meat? On that one he had hesitated, never fond of scavenging, he admitted he preferred hearts still pumping, but when Shiro turned his back and returned the meal was gone.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“You just fed me.”

“I meant before that,” Shiro winced. Lance was cleaning and combing his hair with a whittled bone. It seemed like an unnecessary process, but when Lance showed him the mites he harbored, he didn’t interrupt again.

Lance’s tail curled around Shiro’s dorsal fin subconsciously. “A while.”

“Don’t you need to eat every day?”

“I’m not a good hunter.”

“Is that why you needed me?”

“Among other things.”

“What else do you want from me?”

“Protection.”

“I can’t protect you from storms.”

“It’s not storms I’m afraid of,” Lance replied with finality. “I’m finished.” He swam skyward. “I’m going to look for something to make a basket.”

“…don’t go out of range.”

“Yes, Shiro.”

A new interest dominated Shiro: what did Lance fear?

By all rights, Lance should be afraid of _him._ He saw him beat down a creature thrice his size and thrice as mean. Any other mer who bore witness would have turned tail and fled, especially given he was not descended from one of the kindest peoples of the aquatic world.

But Lance had come towards him. Wailed for hours for his company. He _begged_ to be adopted.

What in the world was scarier than Shiro?

The question came to him again when he heard a distressed _Lance Lance Lance Lance_ thrumming through the water. He hesitated in his idle patrol, “Shiro?”

“ _Lance! Lance! Lance! Lance!”_

“I’m coming,” Shiro raced towards the panic. He heard a squeal of abandon and haste and other things that were goading. He reached the edge of the coral bed where the shelf disappeared into a hazy dark below, and Lance was being harassed by three strangers, suspended above.

“Shiro!” Lance wriggled in the arms of one stranger and bat his fin at the other who placed hands on the swell of his hips and tail. The third recognized Shiro’s approach.

“He has a friend,” he lightly reported.

“Damn, he looks mean.” He licked Lance’s ear and Lance shrieked.

“Let go of my friend,” Shiro requested, not ignorant to their intentions, but uninterested in battle if reason could prevail.

“We will eventually. Just wait a bit.”

Lance blanched.

“No,” Shiro revealed his teeth, “let him go now.”

“Shut up, cripple. Wait your turn.”

“Don’t call him that,” Lance clicked and thrashed his tail against another attempt at his pubic folds. “And let me go!”

The second mer—what was he, jellyfish?—got a solid hold on Lance and licked his scaleless mound. Lance’s colour returned against his volition and he wriggled desperately.

Shiro panicked, “Hey— _stop!”_

He was stopped by a tough hand to his clavicle. “Easy, old man, just enjoy the show, okay? Little Specialists like him like the attention.”

At the same time the second assailant’s tongue shallowly penetrated Lance’s slit and he bucked.

At that, Shiro forgo politeness. He rolled and knocked the third one silly, dug his claws and ripped into the shoulder of the second, and when the first—who was holding Lance—descended on Shiro in a petticoat of stinging appendages, Shiro was merciless. Incapacitated, dead or bleeding, none of the rapists interrupted Lance flying to Shiro’s side, riveted to his middle.

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.”

“Are you alright, Lance?”

“Scared.”

“Come.”

Shiro settled Lance in a tiny kelp grove. Starfish made patterns in the sand and the area was dark and provided excellent cover. They could not see out, but others would have to get dangerously close to see in.

Shiro saw burns on Lance’s shoulder. “He hurt you.”

“You’re worse off.” He leaned forward to lick him better.

“No, it’s fine. Tend to yourself first.”

Lance hesitated. He reclined and licked his shoulder. His energy and eyes were downcast.

“How are you feeling?”

Lance stopped tending to himself for a moment. He picked up a sand coin and felt it squirm on the webbing between his fingers. “Dirty,” he admitted.

“You’re not.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel that way.”

“Are mer like them the reason why you needed a protector so badly?”

Lance winced. “Some…don’t care about sexes. I…learned that two weeks out of losing my pod.”

“By the stars.”

“Sorry.”

“No no, I’m just angry. That’s disgusting behavior.”

Lance flinched again.

“Not you, Lance.”

“I am though. Aren’t I.”

“You’re not.” Shiro blinked. “You’re not disgusting because something terrible was done to you. Come here.”

“For what?” He stared at Shiro’s open arms. He came forward hesitantly, assuming he was about to be shown something, even registering that his skin was reddening and needed treatment. But before he could run his tongue along the pretty patterns, Shiro’s arms folded around him.

Lance panicked at first, the memory of being trapped a too recent and raw, but Shiro’s soothing low throaty thrum grounded him. _Safe safe safe safe safe safe safe_.

Lance incrementally wrapped himself, his arms and his tail about Shiro’s person, and cried loud and hard.

Shiro didn’t silence him.

-

Lance registered that he didn’t care for others being in Shiro’s intimate company when the latter decided that he was going to look for a mate.

“Oh.”

“Is something the matter?”

“No.”

“Are you scared of being alone? I’ll stay within range. Hide in the kelp if you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared!”

Shiro hesitated. Lance was shit at self-defense, was as slow as a guppy, was as loud as a boat and pretty enough to be mistaken as a woman (else, he was pretty enough that if he was realized to be a man it didn’t matter), so if Lance wasn’t scared, Shiro certainly was.

Mers made their interests known thrice after the first event, and all were of different peoples. An alarming many didn’t call in the same tongue. Thankfully being flanked by Shiro dissuaded them, though a few who were younger who figured Shiro’s lost arm was a weakness more than a badge of honor had to learn the hard way.

Shiro, quite frankly, didn’t trust Lance alone.

He returned to his side.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll go next year.”

“Next—why?” Lance’s hands were on him, checking for things Shiro didn’t understand. “What hurts?”

“Nothing hurts.” He pulled away and tread in a slow, idle circle. “I just won’t go.”

“But—”

At the same moment calls reverberated. They were faint and faraway, but the way how Shiro’s eyes darkened Lance figured it was mating call. (To Lance it just sounded like music that kept switching key and switching time.)

Shiro spluttered when he got shoved. “Wh-What?”

“Just go. There’s a little recess I can hide in. It’s too big for others to follow.”

“Where is it?”

Lance showed him.

“It’s looks too small for you.”

“It’s fine. I’m bendy.”

He _was._ And in the beginning Shiro found it horrifying that Lance’s tail was boneless. He could coil up like an eel or wrap around something like an octopus’ limb. Recently it served its uses in plucking and holding while making netted bags—two of which they wore right now—and was proven to be rather firm when Lance held fast. But it was the reason why he was so slow.

Shiro frowned at the tiny cave. It was shallow and looked uncomfortable. “I’d rather stay.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I trust _you._ I don’t trust _others._ ” He glared, “And you should guess why.”

Lance’s hands jerked over his belly reflexively. “Just go.”

“Lance?”

Lance moved away and Shiro watched him until he disappeared into the kelp grove.

Shiro, hesitantly, left.

Lance, against Shiro’s warning, had built for himself a little nest tucked between the bottom of the rise of the continental shelf that was still generously covered by voluminous kelp. Shiro had no faith in sedentary living. While he won this territory for mating rights, he had every intention of moving into open water.

Lance was unsure if he fit into those plans or not. He was afraid to ask.

In the end, he reasoned, Shiro—despite today’s nurturing demonstration—would leave him when the time came for him to find a new territory. It was not self-deprecation: Lance was objectively a poor travelling companion. He drew unwanted attention and could not defend himself. Shiro would have to work twice as hard.

Lance curled into himself until he strained.

Unlike some mer, he didn’t need to be in a perpetual state of motion to breathe. He was happy to settle in his nest, then, a bed of soft sand and woven mat, peering from under the continental shelf’s shadow looking at the unending shape of kelp jungle and ribbons of light that pierced through.

It was peaceful.

Until he heard Shiro singing.

Shiro’s singing was as eclectic as voices coming from bottomless trenches. His voice woven into a language that Lance did not immediately understand. It was haunting, with drawn out sounds that shook listeners down to their bones and made Lance whimper and coil.

But it was so, so, beautiful. He was brought to tears.

Suddenly lethargic and loving, Lance loitered to the edge of the thick grove. He poked out his eyes and now— _there—_ dancing in the open water, in and out of rays of sunshine, Shiro curled and called around a gorgeous creature. She was large, unblemished, and daunting.

She harmonized with him.

Couple their demonic love song with a show of teeth and a tango that was half-battle half-copulation and Lance had enough. It was too violent. Too distressing.

Lance contorted his body into _any_ kind of knot that would keep their music at bay.

-

Shiro drifted in a haze of apathetic concern.

Buzzed from encountering and mating Allura—if he pronounced her name correctly, she had a northern lilt that he couldn’t place—he hadn’t succumbed to the impulse to eat or hunt. Yet despite his euphoria he couldn’t help but take note of Lance’s bitter mood.

Shiro’s idle eyes slid to his hips again, quaking in the water just above him as he flicked his creepy tail in unhurried broad strokes. Lance’s hips had two woven belts inlaid with golden nuggets. It was excellent craftsmanship.

He reached up and grazed Lance’s belly. His travel companion flinched: “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

“I’m awake. Just sleepy.”

Lance slowed to drift beside him. Remora stayed hooked to their tails and backs while they followed the aimless eddies around the reef.

“Can you make me one?”

“One what?”

“Of these.”

“…if you want,” Lance frowned. “It doesn’t serve a purpose. I wear it to…to feel pretty.”

Shiro frowned. “You’re plenty pretty.”

“To you, maybe.”

“To lots of people.”

Lance flinched.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No?”

Shiro drifted away a bit to grant Lance leeway to stew. “I’m sorry. I just meant…”

“I’m pretty.”

Shiro hesitated. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is for me.” Lance sulked. “People don’t look at the pretty on me that I want them to look at.”

Shiro hesitated. “Do you want a mate, Lance?”

“Of course I do.” Lance blinked at him as though it ought to have been obvious. The bright blue of the waters framed his sunny scales so cleverly…he came to as Lance continued, “When I was with my pod there was a girl I liked. Jenny. We might have mated the same moon if I didn’t lose them in the…”

“Storm.”

“Yes.”

“No, Lance,” Shiro reared up, jaw slack as he scented the grounds. The water lost its salinity within the past four hours gradually enough he only just tasted the difference. “There’s a storm coming.”

Shiro kicked and broke the surface: the sky was scrubbed clean of bird and cloud and it was hot hot hot hot hot. Lance’s head bobbed tepidly beside him. Their shoulders brushed. Shiro looked down at Lance who looped an arm around his waist to tether them together.

“Don’t be afraid, Lance.” He stroked his hair, “We’ll go to deeper water. Collect some food. Wait it out.”

Lance only stayed close and chirped sadly.

Lance wove as Shiro hunted. He plucked at vegetation and stowed them in bags that closed at the opening with string. Shiro, fascinated with the invention, and pulled open and closed the bag until Lance smacked at him to stop.

Then they made for the treacherous descent.

“Hold around my shoulders,” Shiro instructed. “We’ll go faster if I drag you.”

“I’m not heavy?”

Shiro swam with Lance attached to him and replied, “I can hardly tell the difference.”

Lance mulled over whether or not that was a dig at his weight or self-praise of Shiro’s size for the hour he took to carefully, carefully swim them deeper and deeper. It got a little colder, it got a little darker. Lance pulled his arms close around Shiro’s shoulders until his cheek was burrowed in his hair.

“Are you alright?” Shiro clicked.

“It’s cold.”

“We won’t stay here long. Promise.” He lifted his hand to rub Lance’s wrist and kept it there. He always found Shiro cold, but here in twilight it was warm. He snuggled closer still.

“Lance?”

“Yes, Shiro.”

“Do you know other languages?”

Lance blinked, though it made little difference. His eyes barely picked up the grey of the storm above, his scales could just feel the current Shiro was riding, he could _just_ pick out a shimmer of some distant fish. He’d assumed Shiro was uninterested in making conversation. Save for the distant chatter of pods that had a similar idea of submerging until the sky cleared, everything beget quiet. He felt himself whisper. “Other?”

“You know MerClick and MerSong. Any others?”

“BigSquidClick, JellyLight and WhaleSong. I don’t know Orca.”

“Orca is easy if you know SquidClick.”

“Teach me?”

So he did.

They played lingual games in the dark. When Lance mentioned the pressure was getting to him, Shiro leveled off. Lance reveled in the undulation of his protector-friend beneath him, the strong set of his shoulders, the even cadence of his songs and happy lilt to his words. His hand stayed on Lance’s hand and Lance had the dangerous thought that they could travel like this forever.

Immediately, he shut up.

 _Dangerous!_ He panicked, because their relationship had a time limit. He only had so many things to teach Shiro. When he outlived his uses…

“Lance?”

He jolted. “Hm.”

“What’s wrong? You want to stop playing?”

“No.”

Shiro hesitated. “Something is wrong. You’re crying.”

“No I’m not.”

“I’ve heard you cry before. At _length._ I know what you sound like when you cry. Are you in pain? Are you scared of the storm?”

He shook his head against Shiro’s head. Shiro’s thumb rubbed his skin.

“I.”

“Hm?”

“When. When you leave me.” He paused to steady himself. The dark buffeted him. He could not see, it was as though he were only thinking what words he said aloud, “When you leave me. Please leave me somewhere safe?”

Shiro did not reply.

“Sh-sh-shiro?”

“Shush. Listen.”

Lance gripped a little tighter. He could hear nothing.

Ah. Nothing. That was odd. Even the distant flicker of fish went away.

“We’re going to start ascending. I don’t like this.”

Lance nodded.

Their ascent was uneventful, but songs drifted. WhaleSong?

“Not whales,” Shiro sang low. Clicks traveled. “Something bigger.”

_Bigger?_

It grew lighter and lighter. Lance uncoiled himself from Shiro’s neck and stretched, unfurling the tautness in his back and tail. Shiro’s long sweep of tail stayed strong and consistent, and he kept gentle hold on Lance’s wrist. Lance didn’t let on how comforting he found it.

They slowed to a pace Lance could manage and ate.

“Sun.”

“Hm?” Lance rolled, “Oh. Uhm.” He made the corresponding vocalization in Orca.

Shiro chewed with pleased gusto. “And I won’t leave.”

“Hm?” Lance squinted. “I don’t know how to say that.”

“No, no—your question. I won’t leave you.”

Lance stared openly. “But you said—”

“You are good for me. I’ve never been this healthy. Or this happy.”

Lance covered his gaping fins and ducked beneath Shiro’s shadow to hide his twisting colours. He felt Shiro’s questioning fingers in his hair.

“How long?”

“As long as you want me around.”

“I’m not a fast swimmer.”

“I can swim for the both of us.”

“I draw unwanted attention.”

“I’m strong.”

“I can’t hunt.”

“You preserve our food. You clean me of mites. You can make tools that make our lives easier. _So much_ easier. You’ve spoiled me.”

Lance ducked his head. Shiro let him blush. They ascended, ascended. Shiro asked for a request.

“Anything,” was Lance’s reply.

Shiro beamed down at him, and Lance turned his back and ducked his head again.

“Make me one of those pretty belts.”

“I can give you this one, if you like.”

“No, I want you to make it for me. I want my own.” He reached for Lance’s throat. Had it been anyone Lance was less familiar with, he would have bolted instantly. Instinct wouldn’t let him suppress a flinch, even. The gills just grazed by Shiro’s thick fingers fluttered a little in their version of a gasp.

But Shiro bypassed his gills and pinched lightly the depression straddling his windpipe just enough to turn him, not nearly enough to inflict harm. Like so, Shiro was gliding with his back to the distant sun, and Lance tread facing him.

Shiro held Lance’s nape and leaned close to rub their noses together. It was a gesture so familial and so far away in Lance’s memory that he near outright cried. Like so, Shiro accepted him into his pack. They were family—Lance was _his_ Specialized.

Lance trill a little.

“Now hold onto me,” a proud Shiro requested. “We have a lot of distance to cover.”

Lance wondered if Shiro could smell his worship as he knotted his arms around his neck. They took off at a gentle speed, still ascending. The storm had not dissipated, it simply had traveled in the opposite direction they took.

Lance nuzzled the hair at Shiro’s nape. Shiro squeezed his arm in reply.

“What made you change your mind?”

“I’ve told you. You’ve spoiled me. I can’t revert to what my lifestyle was before.”

“…and when you learn all the tricks of my trade?”

“Learn?” Shiro grinned. “I’m far too lazy for that. Just stay by my side.”

So he did.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was heavily inspired by Mer-Made for Each Other by Kiksters.


End file.
